What I Did on My Summer Vacation.....Part Two

This is my Part Two of my Summer Vacation Travelogue.  Catch up by reading Part One HERE first.

Besides being a cheaper alternative to lodging, an RV stay also gives you the frugal option of cooking your own meals when you want.  This keeps food costs lower.

Here's what we hauled with us to Maine, from the stockpile, to eat at the campground..... it's the better part of 6 meals.  Cost of food pictured was under $10 with sales/coupons(not including Hubs instant coffee).  Buying it at retail in the grocery store while on vacation would have been close to $30.  Cost of those 6 meals in restaurants, at least $90 not including tips.

Unfortunately, we hauled most of this food home.  The siren song of fresh local seafood was too much to bear so we ate out more than anticipated.
And I don't feel a wit guilty over that!lol

The one thing I don't enjoy paying to eat at restaurants is lobster. A whole lobster dinner even at an inexpensive dining joint will run you upwards of $20 for a small 1.5 lb chick....unless you know where the lobster shacks are that the locals frequent.

I'd rather buy and cook my own whole lobsters.

Why pay $20 or more plus tips for something you can get fresh for $4lb. or less and prepare yourself in 20 minutes?  So I drag my big lobster pot with me every time and we eat like kings on a pauper's budget.
Unfortunately this trip, my lobster pot saw NO action.  We only had whole lobsters once, on our last day in Maine, and I didn't cook them.  We didn't always eat 3 meals a day and the timing never quite worked out(being hungry before the lobster pound closed for the day, being 'home' for meal times at the RV, etc.), so I didn't get to decimate the lobster population as I had wished.

 I remembered from our last trip 2 years ago that our campsite had an old apple tree on site and apples littered the ground.  The owners had cut down that tree since our last visit but I found these 2 other apple trees 2 campsites over....

*Apple trees at the campground.*

I meant to ask the owner what kind of apple trees they were before we left.
It was such a shame to see all those apples rotting on the ground.  And if we had been heading home the day we left there, I would have been tempted to pick as many apples as I could carry home.  But leaving ripe apples in a boiling hot van for days on end was not a good option this trip.

The hot place to eat in Bangor Maine is a Truck Stop.
Dysart's Truck Stop.
They are famous for their homemade corned beef hash(it's VERY good!).
The pancakes are as wide as the plate they are served on and if you eat them often enough, you'll be that wide too.
For a true Maine breakfast experience, whatever you order, you have to order some beans as well.  A traditional lumberjack breakfast in the North Woods of Maine starts with baked yellow eye beans.

If you go to Dysart's on the weekend, you need to get there early unless you want a long wait to get a table.

It's that popular....

Wouldn't you know it, the weekend we arrived in Bangor was the week the State Fair started!  Now I know McVal will be utterly disappointed in me but no, we didn't go to the fair.  I didn't go to Maine to eat deep fried twinkies and other "bad-for-you" fair food and walk for miles and miles in the heat.
And contrary to popular belief, it does get hot in Maine.....but only very briefly, usually in August.
Trust me, I know....


So we spent the rest of Saturday hitting some shopping places I wanted to peruse--the grocery store, the discount store & the local Dollar Store for some supplies(matches, reading material).  We also went searching for some firewood that was cheaper than what the campground store was charging.  We drove up the road and found the nice folks who own Treworgy Orchards in nearby Levant Maine.  They were laying in their own firewood for winter when we drove up and graciously let us buy some bundles off of them, though they don't sell firewood to the public.  This farm is a true family operation and has been around since 1983.  They were having the grand opening of their cool corn maze that weekend.....here it is from waaaaay up in the air.....

*Not my photo.  It's from their website.*

I'm so sad we won't be around for the apple and pumpkin picking in the fall.  It looks like a great place to be and the folks running it couldn't be nicer.
If you find yourself in the Bangor Maine area, be sure and check the Treworgy Orchards Farm out!

On Saturday afternoon, we had neighbors move into the trailer next door.  A family with 2 pre-teen boys.  They arrived in a midsized-sedan car with a "neighboring state's" plates and piled into the trailer immediately after exiting the car.
Either a family member or friend arrived later with another couple of kids.  They were local and were just visiting.  One of the kids kept coming out of the trailer screaming that they couldn't get on their facebook page.

The dad dumped a load of firewood into their fire ring about 30 minutes after they arrived(in the middle of the day mind you) and set it ablaze using about a half a can of lighter fluid.
He and the kids stood and oohed and aahed for about 10 minutes over the blaze.  A bit of primal male bonding no doubt....

Did I mention that this guy had parked their car right next to the fire ring???
EEK! 
I had visions of us all being immolated in a great fiery ball of flame.

Then they all packed into the trailer for some more facebook cruising(I am assuming)and left the roaring fire unattended outside.
Ah, the joy of having urban halfwits with no concept of fire safety for neighbors......

To Be Continued....

Sluggy 

What I Did on My Summer Vacation.....Part One

*This is the first in a series of posts about our summer vacation saga.  WARNING-Lengthy rambling ahead!*

I made my first trip to Maine in the summer of 1980.
It wasn't for pleasure but for work.
I had been accepted as an intern for the summer season at the Brunswick Music Festival Theater, located on the campus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine.

 *The Picard Theater building from the back.*
It's now called the Maine State Music Theater.  Here's their Website.

I spent the bulk of my 1st summer in Maine in the windowless basement of the college's theater building constructing costumes, wardrobing shows and doing a bit of acting..not all at the same time obviously.
At night I'd dragged my exhausted sleep-deprived carcass the 4 blocks to the wretched old beer soaked carpeted frat house where us interns were housed.  I shared a 3 room shotgun suite there with a dancer gal from NYC called Betsy and a native Mainer college student named Brenda.

Brenda and I became good friends.
And Brenda had a car.
Brenda showed me around that part of Maine on our few and far between days off and on a student's cash strapped budget.

We hit the touristy places, but more importantly I got to see the places off the beaten path too, where the tourists don't go.  And I hung out with Brenda's family too.
And yes, I made a few trips to FatBoys....

Ah, the menu hasn't changed since 1980. Literally, it's the same SIGN!....Fat Boy Burgers anyone?

This place is/was across the road from the local Air Force base runway.  Legend has it that Bill Clinton would jet up in AF1 and have some grunt run over to FatBoys for a sack of burgers every now and again, but I digress....

Over the past 30 yrs.....good gawd!?!?....has it been that long?....I've kept in touch with Brenda.  And I've visited with her sporadically over the years though she's never taken me up on my offers to stay with us here in Pennsyltucky.  I guess coal slags, strip mines and underground mine fires aren't her thing.

And after Hubs and I married, I dragged him to Maine on numerous vacation trips.
The 1st time, he will tell you, stands out in his memory because I left him to wander the streets of Brunswick Maine for an entire day alone.
Why?
Because we visited the theater where I had worked and the Costume Designer I had worked for years before was employed that summer again, and was struggling to get the costumes ready in time for opening night of Evita.  They needed extra help, so I was talked into spending one day of my vacation sewing costumes for the show in that windowless basement room again.
Of course, this time, I was free to leave at the end of the day and didn't have to collapse in the frat house, and I earned a nice little paycheck for the day's work, along with a pair of balcony seat tickets to the opening night of the show. ;-)


In spite of that trip, I dare to venture that Maine has become a place near and heart to Hubs heart as well.

For the first time since we had kids, we were able to take a week ALONE so we headed back to Maine last week.

First off, let me state that we don't vacation like typical tourists in Maine.
We don't stay where they stay.
We don't do what they do.
We don't even get to Maine like they do.

You won't find us driving up I-95 through Portsmouth, NH over the bridge to Kittery ME.
Nah, nah, nah!
Now we sneak into Maine through the local backroads across NH.
That way we avoid the parking lot of I-95 and the Mass Turnpike in the summer, especially on weekends.


Two years ago, we traveled to Maine along with #2 son.  We also took the BIL and the nephew just for fun.  We rented  a couple of RVs set up in a campground outside of Bangor Maine.

Bangor Maine is not listed in many people's book as a tourist destination.....unless you are stalking Stephen King....

*#2 son and nephew pose with Stephen's batty gates.*


Or you have a Paul Bunyan fetish....

*#2 son and nephew w/the World's Largest Statue of Paul Bunyan.*


So why stay in Bangor?
Well, 3 reasons.
1-It's not crowded with tourists.....heck, it's not crowded with ANYBODY!  Sluggy does not like crowds.
2-It's only a short drive away from the coast and on the Penobscot River so you are close and accessible to lots of local fresh seafood.
3-It's cheap.  And even better, an RV set up in a campground is a very frugal alternative to a motel room and alot easier to find available at the last minute("last minute" meaning 2 months before you plan on visiting).

Unless you are in one of the larger cities or one of the real bigtime touristy hot spots in Maine, there are not alot of chain motels/hotels.  Most of the places in Maine have small or family owned motels, b&bs, housekeeping cottages or campgrounds.  There are a ton of them but they book up fast and often the same people come back every year for YEARS so rooms never actually come available as visitors rebook for the next year as soon as they arrive for the current year.
There are also people who rent out their homes or own guest houses to rent to the vacationers but usually these are NOT a frugal option, often going for $900-$3,000 a WEEK.  Plus you have to stay a week in the same spot and we like to move around a bit.


So we booked 4 nights in the RV in that campground outside of Bangor.
Not only is it a fair price for lodging that could accommodate 4 people, but you have the woods right outside your door so your He-Man can satiate his primal need to burn stuff....

*Hubs communing with nature and enjoying his campfire.*

To Be Continued.....

Sluggy